Windows Installer Won't Install!

I recently had problems with installing apps from MSI files with the installation failing with an error message "The system cannot open the device or file specified". This is on a W2K SP4 machine with NTFS. All DCOM settings are as recommended by MS in KB article 324906.
KB 324906 says to reinstall the installer (version 2) which I downloaded but the installation of the installer failed with an error:
"The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed.
This can occur if you are running Windows in safe
mode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctly
installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance." (NB I'm the "support personnel so that's not much use!"

Re: Windows Installer Won't Install!

The service named Windows Installer is responsible for installing an MSI on the system. If you are unable to start the service manually, then there is problem in the service itself. Try restarting the machine and then start the service which worked as a solution for me.

Re: Windows Installer Won't Install!

Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately I've restarted many many times over the period that this problem has been bugging me so that's not the answer!
I agree that the problem's probably with the installer service but attempts to reinstall that just produced more installer errors! Or is there a method to remove the windows installer (or maybe references to it in the Registry) and start again? It isn't listed in "Change or Remove Programs" of course, nor in Windows Components.